This guide is geared towards middle school students and was designed for a 7th grade Life Science class. The students finished a unit on Genetics and were each assigned a different genetic disease.
Step 1- Assigning Topics
If your class is heterogeneously grouped, you want to make sure that the more challenging topics are assigned to the students who will be able to handle going the extra mile for their research and the topics with the most information available are assigned to those students who will have the most difficult with the project.
Trick: Have two separate paper bags. In one bag, put all of the topics that are difficult, and in the other all of the topics that are easy. Print the topics on various colored paper so that the students will not make a connection between the bags and the topics. On the first day of the project, when you are assigning groups, walk around the room and let each student pick out of the bag that you put in front of them. Keep track of your easy and hard bag and allow students to choose accordingly. They will like picking the topics out of the bags and will not feel like you are assigning them a topic.
Using their graphic organizer, the students will collect their information and record everything. You must be sure that the students know that no full sentences should be written, and all information must fit on the paper bag. This will help students paraphrase, make lists, and condense their information in their own words.
Sources:
-Bring students to the library or take books out of the library into the classroom for them.
-Print out articles for students to use or take students to library to find journal articles.
-Bring students to computer lab for internet sources.
Step 3: Organizing Information
Students will pick the three focus questions that they found most important/ they found the most information on. These three ideas will be the three body paragraphs in the final essay.
The students will fill out a graphic organizer with their information from their paper bag. They will keep track of their sources by color coding their three sources. When they put the information from each source onto their paragraph graphic organizer, they will highlight it a specific color to indicate where they got the information from.
Instruct students on how to develop a hook statement and thesis statement. You should give examples of hooks and thesis statements and check their work to be sure that they grasp each concept. They should write these on the appropriate lines on the graphic organizer. Students should be able to fill out the rest of the organizer using information from their paper bag.
Step 4: Rough Draft
Students should write a rough draft using their graphic organizer. They should skip lines to leave room for edits.
Step 5: Edit Rough Draft
Peer Edit- Student pair up and use an editing checklist to check each others work.
Teacher Check- You should read through each student's rough draft to be sure that they are on the right track and ready to write their final copies.
Step 6: Final Copy
Students write their final copies being sure to make the appropriate edits.
Scientific Writing Process
This guide is geared towards middle school students and was designed for a 7th grade Life Science class. The students finished a unit on Genetics and were each assigned a different genetic disease.
Step 1- Assigning Topics
If your class is heterogeneously grouped, you want to make sure that the more challenging topics are assigned to the students who will be able to handle going the extra mile for their research and the topics with the most information available are assigned to those students who will have the most difficult with the project.Trick: Have two separate paper bags. In one bag, put all of the topics that are difficult, and in the other all of the topics that are easy. Print the topics on various colored paper so that the students will not make a connection between the bags and the topics. On the first day of the project, when you are assigning groups, walk around the room and let each student pick out of the bag that you put in front of them. Keep track of your easy and hard bag and allow students to choose accordingly. They will like picking the topics out of the bags and will not feel like you are assigning them a topic.
Step 2: Research Process
Making Paper Bag Graphic OrganizerUsing their graphic organizer, the students will collect their information and record everything. You must be sure that the students know that no full sentences should be written, and all information must fit on the paper bag. This will help students paraphrase, make lists, and condense their information in their own words.
Sources:
-Bring students to the library or take books out of the library into the classroom for them.
-Print out articles for students to use or take students to library to find journal articles.
-Bring students to computer lab for internet sources.
Step 3: Organizing Information
Students will pick the three focus questions that they found most important/ they found the most information on. These three ideas will be the three body paragraphs in the final essay.The students will fill out a graphic organizer with their information from their paper bag. They will keep track of their sources by color coding their three sources. When they put the information from each source onto their paragraph graphic organizer, they will highlight it a specific color to indicate where they got the information from.
Instruct students on how to develop a hook statement and thesis statement. You should give examples of hooks and thesis statements and check their work to be sure that they grasp each concept. They should write these on the appropriate lines on the graphic organizer. Students should be able to fill out the rest of the organizer using information from their paper bag.
Step 4: Rough Draft
Students should write a rough draft using their graphic organizer. They should skip lines to leave room for edits.Step 5: Edit Rough Draft
Peer Edit- Student pair up and use an editing checklist to check each others work.Teacher Check- You should read through each student's rough draft to be sure that they are on the right track and ready to write their final copies.
Step 6: Final Copy
Students write their final copies being sure to make the appropriate edits.